Something New

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Even with the so-so box office, I think it will end up being a sleeper hit for Focus. I bet it gets good word of mouth. Plus, Valentine's Day "weekend" is coming up soon and that might really boost the audience numbers.

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I totally agree. This is the ultimate date movie. Not everyone wants to see the movies coming out in the next couple of weeks: The Pink Panther and the Harrison Ford movie. They just don't appeal to me.

[magazinewhore]

I'm intrigued. And I just heard it's the first major studio movie written and and directed by an African-American woman. Can that be possible? The first? Geez.

[ownlife]

So this is a good one? I wasn't going to see it based on the TV trailers but I think it may be better than that. I'm surprised Eric Thal wasn't cast as the love interest because he's usually the go-to guy for interracial romances. He was in Mixing Nia, The Wedding and some awful movie with Naomi Campbell, and he was also the guy who had a fling with Will Smith in Six Degrees of Separation. I guess he's covered all of the bases now.

[Deleted]

I'm intrigued. And I just heard it's the first major studio movie written and and directed by an African-American woman.

Not only was it written and directed by women of color, but produced by one as well.

So this is a good one? I wasn't going to see it based on the TV trailers but I think it may be better than that. I'm surprised Eric Thal wasn't cast as the love interest because he's usually the go-to guy for interracial romances.

The producer said that they saw over 40 guys for the role of Brian. I was surprised to read this because I didn't think they did that much auditioning for low budget movies.

Anyway, of those that read with Sanaa, Simon Baker had the best chemistry with her.

Ironically, he was in another film that dealt with interracial romances. Anyone remember that movie Restaurant that starred Adrien Brody, Lauryn Hill and Elise Neal?

[Deleted]

Anyway, of those that read with Sanaa, Simon Baker had the best chemistry with her.

Oh definitely. My mother was a huge fan of his since his days on that show The Guardian, so I took her to the sneak preview and I became a fan as well.

Is it true he was in The Affair of the Necklace, the period piece Hilary Swank made after she won the Oscar? I know it didn't do well at the box office but if he's in that movie I'll will buy it.

[Deleted]

If you purchace The Affair of the Necklace, make sure you do so with lowered expectations. It's not that it's awful. It's simply one of those movies that's better in theory than in execution.

It comes across like a poor man's Dangerous Liaisons. Hilary and Simon were good. But the movie kept falling down around them.

[Deleted]

I saw this the other day and loved it! Romcoms usually don't impress me, but Sanaa Lathan and Simon Baker have mad chemistry, and the movie does the best it can within the restraints of the genre.

I think the one of the things that impressed me the most was the adoring, respectful (for the most part) way Baker's character Brian treated Lathan's Kenya, and I suppose that is because it was of the females in charge. The other was that they didn't resort to making Blair Underwood the bad guy in the love triangle, just the guy who was not right for Kenya, despite the fact that he was her IBM (Ideal Black Man.

I am just bummed that it's tanking at the BO. I'm hoping that word-of-mouth will result in a better second BO weekend.

[realitybug]

The only thing I found interesting about this movie is when they played Natasha Bedingfield's song "these words" in one of the ads.

[Deleted]

I just saw it tonight. I thought it was OK. I honestly didn't think that they had that much chemistry. But I didn't think she had much chemistry with Blair Underwood either. In fact, I know that most of the movie was supposed to be about her becoming less uptight but she was SUCH and uptight frigid witch for the whole first part of the movie that I found it hard to muster up too much sympathy for her man troubles. Also, Brian, as a character wasn't very well-developed.

I liked her best when she was hanging out with her friends and sadly those scenes were few and far between. So I wasn't over the moon about it but even with those criticisms, I have to admit it was a bajillion times better than Just Like Heaven which was the last rom-com I saw in the theatre.